Contrary to the legend that evolved in late sixteenth century Recusant More hagiography, of a distancing or even a breach in the spiritual and intellectual friendship between Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam, the primary texts point to the persistence of an intimate bond between them. Even More's late letter to Erasmus informing him of his resignation addresses the matter of Erasmus's churchmanship and doctrinal reliability. Here we find More defending and praising the writings of Erasmus, and not merely (...) against the rabid and ill-willed scholastic ignoramuses who had attacked his New Testament translation, but even against morally upright and well-meaning ecclesiastical scholars, who had failed to remove the beam from their own eyes before hypocritically endeavoring to pluck the speck out of Erasmus's. Thomas More adhered to the commendation of Erasmus published by Pope Leo X, and whether More's modern admirers like it or not, Thomas More remained for two decades Erasmus's first and best apologist. (shrink)

We theorize that social media will reduce the incidence of corporate greenwash. Drawing on the management literature on decoupling and the economic literature on information disclosure, we characterize specifically where this effect is likely to be most pronounced. We identify important differences between social media and traditional media, and present a theoretical framework for understanding greenwash in which corporate environmental communications may backfire if citizens and activists feel a company is engaging in excessive self-promotion. The framework allows us to draw (...) out a series of propositions regarding the impact of social media on corporate decisions whether to greenwash, and what channels to use for environmental communication. We conclude with a number of suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Philosophy challenges our assumptions—especially when it comes to us from another culture. In exploring Japanese philosophy, a dependable guide is essential. The present volume, written by a renowned authority on the subject, offers readers a historical survey of Japanese thought that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. Adhering to the Japanese philosophical tradition of highlighting engagement over detachment, Thomas Kasulis invites us to think with, as well as about, the Japanese masters by offering ample examples, innovative analogies, thought experiments, and (...) jargon-free explanations. He assumes little previous knowledge and addresses themes—aesthetics, ethics, the samurai code, politics, among others—not in a vacuum but within the conditions of Japan’s cultural and intellectual history. For readers new to Japanese studies, he provides a simplified guide to pronouncing Japanese and a separate discussion of the language and how its syntax, orthography, and linguistic layers can serve the philosophical purposes of a skilled writer and subtle thinker. For those familiar with the Japanese cultural tradition but less so with philosophy, Kasulis clarifies philosophical expressions and problems, Western as well as Japanese, as they arise. Half of the book’s chapters are devoted to seven major thinkers who collectively represent the full range of Japan’s historical epochs and philosophical traditions: Kūkai, Shinran, Dōgen, Ogyū Sorai, Motoori Norinaga, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō. Nuanced details and analyses enable an engaged understanding of Japanese Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintō, and modern academic philosophy. Other chapters supply social and cultural background, including brief discussions of nearly a hundred other philosophical writers. In his closing chapter Kasulis reflects on lessons from Japanese philosophy that enhance our understanding of philosophy itself. He reminds us that philosophy in its original sense means loving wisdom, not studying ideas. In that regard, a renewed appreciation of engaged knowing can play a critical role in the revitalization of philosophy in the West as well as the East. (shrink)

At once feared and revered, sharks have captivated people since our earliest human encounters. Children and adults alike stand awed before aquarium shark tanks, fascinated by the giant teeth and unnerving eyes. And no swim in the ocean is undertaken without a slight shiver of anxiety about the very real—and very cinematic—dangers of shark bites. But our interactions with sharks are not entirely one-sided: the threats we pose to sharks through fisheries, organized hunts, and gill nets on coastlines are more (...) deadly and far-reaching than any bite. In Sharks and People acclaimed wildlife photographer Thomas Peschak presents stunning photographs that capture the relationship between people and sharks around the globe. A contributing photographer to National Geographic, Peschak is best known for his unusual photographs of sharks—his iconic image of a great white shark following a researcher in a small yellow kayak is one of the most recognizable shark photographs in the world. The other images gathered here are no less riveting, bringing us as close as possible to sharks in the wild. Alongside the photographs, Sharks and People tells the compelling story of the natural history of sharks. Sharks have roamed the oceans for more than four hundred million years, and in this time they have never stopped adapting to the ever-changing world—their unique cartilage skeletons and array of super-senses mark them as one of the most evolved groups of animals. Scientists have recently discovered that sharks play an important role in balancing the ocean, including maintaining the health of coral reefs. Yet, tens of millions of sharks are killed every year just to fill the demand for shark fin soup alone. Today more than sixty species of sharks, including hammerhead, mako, and oceanic white-tip sharks, are listed as vulnerable or in danger of extinction. The need to understand the significant part sharks play in the oceanic ecosystem has never been so urgent, and Peschak’s photographs bear witness to the thrilling strength and unique attraction of sharks. They are certain to enthrall and inspire. (shrink)

This article attempts to spell out more clearly the Thomist, the Openist, and the Molinist approaches to divine providence, and to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of these three positions. It begins by discussing both the traditional notion of divine providence and the libertarian picture of freedom. The article then argues that each theory of divine providence has its advantages and disadvantages. Each has had numerous able and creative defenders. As with most philosophical disputes, one can hardly expect this debate (...) to come to an end. The field of battle may shift more clearly in the coming years to considerations of which view, when applied to specific doctrines, offers us the most satisfying overall position. Still, it seems quite likely that all three positions will continue to be defended for the foreseeable future. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Traditional Notion of Providence Problems with the Tradition Reactions to these Problems Applications to Predestination Evaluating the Four Pictures Works cited.

Parmi les multiples énigmes de la généalogie de Jésus en Mt 1,1-17, la présence de quatre, voire de cinq femmes dans un texte où prédominent les hommes a suscité de nombreuses tentatives d’explication. Cet article part de l’observation que les quatre premières femmes sont en amont ou complices du roi David, tandis que la cinquième femme est la mère de celui qui est présenté comme Messie. Il constate par ailleurs que si l’on avait appliqué strictement les dispositions de la Torah (...) à leur égard, ni le grand roi, ni a fortiori la dynastie davidique n’auraient vu le jour. Le récit du dilemme de Joseph en 1,18-25 témoigne de son effort pour se frayer un chemin entre une certaine conformité avec la Loi et les exigences de la miséricorde en rapport avec le cas de sa femme enceinte. Ainsi, dès le début de l’évangile de Matthieu est posée la question de l’observance de la Torah face aux exigences des Prophètes et ultérieurement face à l’enseignement de Jésus. (shrink)

The first half of the twentieth century was a dark time for philosophical theology. Sharp divisions were developing among philosophers over the proper aims and ambitions for philosophical theorizing and proper methods for approaching philosophical problems. But many philosophers were united in thinking, for different reasons, that the methods of philosophy are incapable of putting us in touch with theoretically interesting truths about God.

Annotation. "For the thoughtful Westerner this must be one of the most clear and perceptive accounts of Zen available. Thoroughly new is Kasulis' attempt to locate the Zen understanding of the person in secular Japanese assumptions." --Times Literary Supplement.

Variables are among the most ubiquitous of technical expressions in scientific discourse. But what exactly do they express, and of what relevance are they to ontology? Since variables are analogous to pronouns and descriptive phrases in certain nonreferential occurrences, an answer to these questions can be sought in the semantics of these expressions. I offer an intentional account wherein variables and their natural language counterparts are understood wholly in terms of the sortal content they express.

How can I know something? How can I convince someone of the rightness of my position? How does reality function? What is artistic creativity? What is the role of the state? It is well known that people from various cultures give dissimilar answers to such philosophical questions. After three decades in the cross-cultural study of ideas and values, Thomas Kasulis found that culture influences not only the answers to these questions, but often how one arrives at the answers. In (...) generalizing cultural difference, Kasulis identifies two kinds of orientation: intimacy and integrity. Both determine how we think about relations among people and among things, and each is reasonable, effective, and consistent. Yet the two are so incompatible in their basic assumptions that they cannot successfully engage each other. Cultural difference extends beyond nations. Cultural identities crystallize in relation to religion, occupation, race, gender, class. Rather than attempt to transcend cultural difference, Kasulis urges a deeper awareness of its roots by moving beyond mere cultural relativism toward a cultural bi-orientationality that will allow us to adapt ourselves to different cultural contexts as the situation demands. Wonderfully clear and unburdened by jargon, Intimacy or Integrity is accessible to readers from a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. By analyzing the synergy between thought and culture, it increases our understanding of cultural difference and guides us in developing strategies for dealing with orientations different from our own. (shrink)

Philosophical theology is aimed primarily at theoretical understanding of the nature and attributes of God and of God's relationship to the world and its inhabitants. During the twentieth century, much of the philosophical community had grave doubts about our ability to attain any such understanding. In recent years the analytic tradition in particular has moved beyond the biases that placed obstacles in the way of the pursuing questions located on the interface of philosophy and religion. The result has been a (...) rebirth of serious, widely-discussed work in philosophical theology. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology attempts both to familiarize readers with the directions in which this scholarship has gone and to pursue the discussion into hitherto under-examined areas. Written by some of the leading scholars in the field, the essays in the Handbook are grouped in five sections. In the first, articles focus on the authority of scripture and tradition, on the nature and mechanisms of divine revelation, on the relation between religion and science, and on theology and mystery. The next section focuses on philosophical problems connected with the central divine attributes: aseity, omnipotence, omniscience, and the like. In Section Three, essays explore theories of divine action and divine providence, questions about petitionary prayer, problems about divine authority and God's relationship to morality and moral standards, and various formulations of and responses to the problem of evil. The fourth section examines philosophical problems that arise in connection with such central Christian doctrines as the trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, original sin, resurrection, and the Eucharist. Finally, Section Five introduces readers to work that is being done in Jewish, Islamic, and Chinese philosophical theology. (shrink)

This book is an investigation of the relationship between self and body in the Indian, Japanese, and Chinese philosophical traditions. The interplay between self and body is complex and manifold, touching on issues of epistemology, ontology, social philosophy, and axiology. The authors examine these issues and make relevant connections to the Western tradition. The authors' allow the Asian traditions to shed new light on some of the traditional mind-body issues addressed in the West.

It can be unnerving to read and teach Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling in a world plagued by religious violence. The book’s praise of Abraham as the “father of faith” precisely for his willingness to kill his son Isaac, combined with its suggestion that through faith one could “suspend” ethics, seems to provide a defense and even an endorsement of religiously motivated violence. In order to see why this is a misreading of the text, we will need to go beyond arguments (...) based on the book’s pseudonymous or symbolic nature. Only by considering in detail what Fear and Trembling says about Abraham’s faith can we see that, far from endorsing religious violence, the book provides an insightful contrast between true Abrahamic faith and the orientation of hatred, bigotry, ideological blindness behind today’s religious violence. (shrink)

Traditional Christians face a puzzle concerning the freedom and perfection of Christ. Jesus the man, it seems, must have possessed significant freedom forhim to serve as a moral example for us and for his death to have been truly meritorious. Yet Jesus the Son of God must be incapable of sinning if he is trulydivine. So if Jesus is both human and divine, one of these two attributes - significant freedom or moral perfection - apparently needs to be surrendered. In (...) thisessay, it is argued that if (and perhaps only if) a Molinist approach to divine providence is embraced, one can plausibly affirm both the freedom of the manand the impeccability of the Son. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 57-74 [Access article in PDF] An American Novelist in the Philosopher King's Court Thomas P. Crocker I MORAL PHILOSOPHY has languished long within the confines of something like the following purported dilemma: either moral discourse is the discourse of principles and rules rationally grounded, or moral discourse is the discourse of passions and personal preferences, clothed in the garments of rational justification. Alasdair (...) MacIntyre's disquieting suggestion—that our language of moral debate is nothing more than the "simulacra of morality"—provides a grim outlook for moral philosophy. 1 Indeed, when moral inquiry is conducted in terms of ethical theory, without independent grounds upon which competing arguments can meet, philosophical discourse, embedded in competing theories, seems to be only so much cacophonous clamor, rationally convincing no one except those who already accept the terms employed by their own theory. One way to avoid this philosophical effluvium produced by moral philosophy is to follow Ludwig Wittgenstein in rejecting the very terms upon which it is made (the distinction between the particular perspective and the universal standpoint), recognizing that moral inquiry begins from where we already are—the everyday world in which we find ourselves.Towards the end of avoidance here, I wish to add to this simmering background of ethical discord Mark Twain's story of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 2 Twain's controversial voice provides a place for moral thinking unavailable through strictly theoretical discourse. 3 And reading Huck and Jim's story through the philosophical avoidance of Wittgenstein's latent ethical thought provides the transformative possibility of seeing the domain of the ethical in a new light. 4 [End Page 57]Although Twain boldly states at the beginning of his novel that "persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished," 5 he does show us without the need of theory or dogma how a change in one's way of seeing is intertwined with a change in one's way of living; this connection between ways of seeing and ways of living makes possible a kind of moral transformation that characterizes the change in Huck's perception of Jim, from that of a slave to that of a friend. This moral conversion is much like the perceptual transformations that Ludwig Wittgenstein considers in his discussions of "noticing an aspect," 6 in which a shift in what one sees is connected to the background against which the perceptual object is seen and to the ways in which one is prepared to respond to it. When confronting perceptual ambiguity, as in the case of Jastrow's ambiguous duck/rabbit figure, one looks to the context and background to clarify what one sees, just as one does with semantic ambiguity. In coming to see in one way or the other, nothing is explicitly stated, nothing is put into argumentative form. And in Twain's narrative, we are not given arguments for why we should see Jim as human, nor does the narrative recount Huck's confrontations with moral arguments; rather, through his interactions with Jim, Huck is shown Jim's humanity, his friendship, and we, the readers, are shown the possibility of a moral transformation that is not determined by or grounded in rules or philosophical arguments.The moral realist might agree that such a transformation could be motivated in ways other than rational arguments, but to be legitimate, it must be possible to reconstruct the transformation according to rational considerations. The ability to "get behind" the transformation in some justificatory way is what I am denying here (as is Wittgenstein); for what one finds when one "gets behind" is another situated language game that is itself not open to question (though it could be if we direct our attention towards it). There is no final "getting behind" the things we do and the situations in which we do them, and hence there is no final justificatory argument one can give—as Wittgenstein famously says, "If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am... (shrink)